The parallel immunohistochemical study of VEGF-A protein expression showed that, in both cancer cells and cirrhotic hepatocytes, staining was mainly located in the cytoplasm, and was significantly higher in HCC than in paired LC tissues (mean ± SEM H-score: 187.70 ± 10.20 vs. 143.40 ± 9.06) (Figure 4A). Here, VEGFA is linked to cancer.